The Mediterranean Caper (3 page)

The uneven battle continued for a full eight minutes while the military spectators on the ground watched, spellbound. The strange aerial dogfight slowly drifted eastward over the shoreline, and the final round began.

Pitt was sweating now. Small glistening beads of the salty liquid were bursting from the pores on his forehead and trickling in snail-like trails down his face. His opponent was cunning, but Pitt was playing the strategy game too. With infinite patience, dredged up from some hidden reserve in his body, he waited for the right moment, and when it finally arrived he was ready.

The Albatros managed to get behind and slightly above the Catalina. Pitt held his speed steady and the other pilot, sensing victory, closed to within fifty yards of the flying boat's towering tail section. But before the two machine guns could speak, Pitt pulled the throttle back and lowered the flaps, slowing the big craft into a near stall. The phantom pilot, taken by surprise, overshot and passed the PBY, receiving several well placed rounds in the Albatros' engine as the carbine spat at near point-blank range. The vintage plane banked in front of Pitt's bow, and he watched with the respect one brave man has for another when the occupant in the open cockpit pushed up his goggles and threw a curt salute. Then the yellow Albatros and its mysterious pilot turned away and headed west over the island, trailing a black streak of smoke that testified to the accuracy of Giordino's marksmanship.

The Catalina was falling out of its stall into a dive now, and Pitt fought the controls for a few unnerving seconds before he regained stable flight. Then he began a sweeping, upward turn in the sky. At five thousand feet he leveled off and searched the island and seascape, but no trace of the bright yellow plane with the maltese cross markings was visible. It had vanished.

A cold, clammy feeling crept over Pitt. The yellow Albatros had somehow seemed familiar. It was as though an unremembered ghost from the past had returned to haunt him. But the eerie sensation passed as quickly as it had arrived, and he gave out a deep sigh as the tension faded away, and the welcome comfort of relief gently soothed his mind.

“Well, when do I get my sharpshooter's medal?” said Giordino from the cabin doorway. He was grinning despite a nasty gash in his scalp. The blood streamed down the right side of his face, staining the collar of a loud, flowered print shirt.

“After we land I'll buy you a drink instead,” replied Pitt without turning.

Giordino slipped into the co-pilot's seat. “I feel like I've just ridden the roller coaster at the Long Beach Pike.”

Pitt could not help grinning. He relaxed, leaning back against the backrest, saying nothing. Then he turned and looked at Giordino, and his eyes squinted. “What happened to you? Were you hit?”

Giordino gave Pitt a mocking, sorrowful look. “Whoever told you that you could loop a PBY?”

“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” said Pitt, a twinkle in his eye.

“Next time, warn the passengers. I bounced around the main cabin like a basketball.”

“What did you hit your head on?” Pitt asked quizzically.

“Did you have to ask?”

“Well?”

Giordino suddenly became embarrassed. “If you must know, it was the door handle on the john.”

Pitt looked startled for an instant. Then he flung back his head and roared with laughter. The mirth was contagious, and Giordino soon followed. The sound rang through the cockpit and replaced the noise of the engines. Nearly thirty seconds passed before their gaiety quieted, and the seriousness of the present situation returned.

Pitt's mind was clear, but exhaustion was slowly seeping in. The long hours of flight and the strain of the recent combat fell on him heavily and soaked his body like a numbing, damp fog. He thought about the sweet smell of soap in a cold shower and the crispness of clean sheets, and somehow they became vitally important to him. He looked out the cockpit window at Brady Field and recalled that his original destination was the
First Attempt,
but a dim hunch, or call it a hindsight, made him change his mind.

“Instead of landing in the water and rendezvousing alongside of the
First Attempt,
I think we'd better set down at Brady Field. I have a foreboding feeling we may have taken a few bullets in our hull.”

“Good idea,” Giordino replied. “I'm not in the mood for bailing.”

The big flying boat made its final approach and lined up on the wreckage strewn runway. It settled on the heat baked asphalt, and the landing gear bumped and emitted an audible screech of rubber that signaled the touchdown.

Pitt angled clear of the flames and taxied to the far side of the apron. When the Catalina stopped rolling he clicked off the ignition switches, and the two silver bladed propellers gradually ceased their revolutions and came to rest, gleaming in the Aegean sun. All was quiet. He and Giordino sat stone still for a few moments and absorbed the first comfortable silence to penetrate the cockpit after thirteen hours of noise and vibration.

Pitt flipped the latch on his side window and pushed it open, watching with detached interest as the base firemen fought the inferno. Hoses were lying everywhere, like highways on a road map, and men scurried about shouting, adding to the stage of confusion. The flames on the F-105 jets were almost contained, but one of the C-133 Cargomasters still burned fiercely.

“Take a look over here,” said Giordino pointing.

Pitt leaned over the instrument panel and stared out of Giordino's window at a blue Air Force station wagon that careened across the runway in the direction of the PBY. The car contained several officers and was followed by thirty or forty wildly cheering enlisted men who chased after it like a pack of braying hounds.

“Now that's what I call one hell of a reception committee,” Pitt said amused and broadly smiling.

Giordino mopped his bleeding cut with a handkerchief. When the cloth was soaked through with red ooze he wadded it up and threw it out of the window to the ground. His gaze turned toward the nearby coastline and became lost in the infinity of thought for a moment. Finally he turned to Pitt. “I guess you know we're pretty damn lucky to be sitting here.”

“Yes, I know,” said Pitt woodenly. “There were a couple of times up there when I thought our ghost had us.”

“I wish I knew who the hell he was and what this destruction was all about?”

Pitt's face was a study in speculative curiosity. “The only clue is the yellow Albatros.”

Giordino eyed his friend questioningly. “What possible meaning could the color of that old flying derelict have?”

“If you'd studied your aviation history,” Pitt said with a touch of good-natured sarcasm, “you'd remember that German pilots of the First World War painted their planes with personal, but sometimes outlandish, color schemes.”

“Save the history lesson for later,” Giordino growled. “Right now all I want to do is get out of this sweatbox and collect that drink you owe me.” He rose from his seat and started for the exit hatch.

The blue station wagon skidded to a halt beside the big silver flying boat and all four doors burst open. The occupants leaped out shouting and began pounding on the plane's aluminum hatch. The crowd of enlisted men soon engulfed the aircraft, cheering loudly and waving at the cockpit.

Pitt remained seated and waved back at the cheering men below the window. His body was tired and numb but his mind was still active and running at full throttle. A title kept running through his thoughts until finally he muttered it aloud. “The
Hawk of Macedonia.
”

Giordino turned from the doorway. “What did you say?”

“Oh nothing, nothing at all.” Pitt let his breath escape in a long audible sigh. “Come on—I'll buy you that drink now.”

When Pitt awoke,
it was still dark. He did not know how long he had slept. Perhaps he just dozed off. Perhaps he had been lost under the black cloak of sleep for hours. He did not know, nor did he care. The metal springs of the Air Force cot squeaked as he rolled over, seeking a more comfortable position. But the comfort of deep sleep eluded him. His conscious mind dimly tried to analyze why. Was it the steady humming noise of the air conditioner? he asked himself. He was used to drifting off under the loud din of aircraft engines, so that couldn't be it. Maybe it was the scurrying cockroaches. God knows Thasos was covered with them. No, it was something else. Then he knew. The answer pierced the fog of his drowsy brain. It was his other mind, the
unconscious
one, that was keeping him awake. Like a movie projector, it flashed pictures of the strange events from the previous day, over and over again.

One picture stood out above all the rest. It was the photograph in a gallery of the Imperial War Museum. Pitt could recall it vividly. The camera had caught a German aviator posing beside a World War I fighter plane. He was garbed in the flying togs of the day, and his right hand rested upon the head of an immense white German shepherd. The dog, obviously a mascot, was panting and looking up at his master with a patronizing, doe-like expression. The flyer stared back at the camera with a boyish face that somehow looked naked without the usual Prussian dueling scar and monocle. However, the proud Teutonic military bearing could be easily seen in the hint of an insolent grin and the ramrod straight posture.

Pitt even remembered the caption under the photo:

The Hawk of Macedonia

For some time, Pitt lay staring in the darkness. There would be no more sleep tonight, he thought. Sitting up and leaning on one elbow, he reached over a bedside table, groped for his Omega watch and held it in front of his eyes. The luminous dial read 4:09. Then he sat up and dropped the bare soles of his feet on the vinyl tile floor. A package of cigarettes sat next to the watch, and he pulled out one and lit it with a silver Zippo lighter. Inhaling deeply, he stood up and stretched. His face grimaced: the muscles of his back stung from the backslapping he had received from the cheering men of Brady Field right after he and Giordino had climbed from the cockpit of the PBY. Pitt smiled to himself in the dark as he thought about the warm handshakes and congratulations pressed upon them.

The moonlight, beaming in through the window of the Officers' Quarters, and the warm clear air of early morning made Pitt restless. He stripped off his shorts and rummaged through his luggage in the dim light. When his touch recognized the cloth shape of a pair of swim trunks, he slipped them on, snatched a towel from the bathroom and stepped out into the stillness of the night.

Once outside, the brilliant Mediterranean moon enveloped his body and laid bare the landscape with an eerie ghost-like emptiness. The sky was all studded with stars and revealed the Milky Way in a great white design across a black velvet backdrop.

Pitt strolled down the path from the Officers' Quarters toward the main gate. He paused for a minute, looking at the vacant runway, and he noticed a black area every so often in the rows of multicolored lights that stitched the edges. Several of the lights in the signal system must have been damaged in the attack, he thought. However, the general pattern was still readable to a pilot making a night landing. Behind the intermediate lights, he could make out a dark outline of the PBY, sitting forlornly on the opposite side of the apron like a nesting duck. The bullet damage to the Catalina's hull turned out to be slight and the Flight Line Maintenance crew promised that they would begin repairs first thing in the morning, the restoration taking three days. Colonel James Lewis, the base commanding officer, had expressed his apologies at the delay, but he needed the bulk of the maintenance crew to work on the damaged jets and the remaining C-133 Cargomaster. In the meantime, Pitt and Giordino elected to accept the colonel's hospitality and stay at Brady Field, using the
First Attempt
's whaleboat to commute between the ship and shore. The last arrangement worked to everyone's advantage since living quarters aboard the
First Attempt
were cramped and at a premium.

“Kind of early for a swim, isn't it, buddy?”

The voice snapped Pitt from his thoughts, and he found himself standing under the white glare of floodlights that were perched on top of the guard's shack at the main gate. The shack sat on a curb-lined island that divided the incoming and outgoing traffic and was just large enough for one man to sit in. A short, burly looking Air Policeman stepped from the doorway and eyed him closely.

“I couldn't sleep.” As soon as he said it, Pitt felt foolish for not being more original. But what the hell, he thought, it's the truth.

“Can't say as I blame you,” said the AP. “After all that's happened today, I'd be real surprised if anyone on the base was sound asleep.” The mere thought of sleep triggered a reflex, and the AP yawned.

“You must get awfully bored, sitting out here alone all night,” said Pitt.

“Yeah, it gets pretty dull,” the AP said, hooking one hand in his Sam Browne belt and resting the other on the grip of a .45 Colt automatic, clinging to his hip. “If you're going off base, you'd better let me see your pass.”

“Sorry, I don't have one.” Pitt had forgotten to ask Colonel Lewis for a pass to get on and off Brady Field.

A swaggering, tough look crossed the AP's face. “Then you'll have to go back to the barracks and get it.” He swatted at a moth that flapped by his face, toward a floodlight.

“That would be a waste of time. I don't even own a pass,” said Pitt, smiling helplessly.

“Don't play dumb with me, buddy. Nobody gets in or out of the gate without a pass.”

“I did.”

The AP's eyes became suspicious. “How did you manage that?”

“I flew in.”

A surprised look hit the AP. His eyes beamed in the brightness of the floods. Another passing moth lit on his white cap, but he did not notice it. Then it burst from him. “You're the pilot of that Catalina flying boat!”

“Guilty as charged,” said Pitt.

“Say, I want to shake your hand.” The AP's lips opened in a big tooth-displaying smile. “That was the greatest piece of flying I've ever seen.” He thrust out a massive hand.

Pitt took the outstretched hand and winced. He had a strong grip of his own, but it seemed puny compared to the AP's. “Thank you, but I'd have felt a lot better about it if my opponent had crashed.”

“Oh hell, he couldn't have gone far. That old junk pile was smoking up a storm when it crossed over the hills.”

“Maybe it crashed on the other side?”

“No chance. The colonel had the whole Air Police squadron chasing all over the island in jeeps, looking for it. He searched until dark, but didn't spot a thing.” He appeared disgusted. “What really pissed me off was getting back to the base too late for the chow line.”

Pitt grinned. “It must have gone down in the sea, or else made the mainland before falling.”

The AP shrugged his shoulders. “Could be. But one thing's for sure; it ain't on Thasos. You have my personal guarantee on that.”

Pitt laughed. “That's good enough for me.” He swung the towel over his shoulder and pulled at his swim trunks. “Well it's been nice talking to you…”

“Airman Second Class Moody, sir.”

“I'm Major Pitt.”

The AP's face went blank. “Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know you were an officer. I thought you were one of those civilians with NUMA. I'll let you out this time, Major, but I'd appreciate it if you got a base pass.”

“I'll see to it first thing after breakfast.”

“My replacement comes on at 0800. If you're not back by then, I'll leave word so he'll let you in without any trouble.”

“Thank you, Moody. Perhaps I'll see you later.” Pitt waved and then turned and walked down the road toward the beach.

Pitt kept to the right side of the narrow paved road and in about a mile came to a small cove that was flanked by large craggy rocks. The moonlight showed him a path, and he took it until his feet crunched softly in the sandy beach. He dropped the towel and walked to the tide line. A wave broke, and the white of its crest slid smoothly across the packed sand and licked his feet. The dying wave hesitated for a moment and then fell back, forming the trough for the next crest. There was barely a breath of wind, and the glistening sea was relatively calm. The moon cast its glow on the dark water and left a shaft of silver that traveled over the surface to the horizon where the sea and sky melted together into absolute blackness. Pitt soaked up the warm stillness and moved into the water, swimming along the silver shaft.

An inner feeling always overcame Pitt when he was alone and near the sea. It was as though his soul seeped out of his body, and he became a thing without substance, without form. His mind was purified and cleansed: all mental labor ceased and all thoughts vanished. He was only vaguely aware of hot and cold, smells, touch and all the other senses, except hearing. He listened to the nothingness of silence; the greatest, but most unknown, treasure of man. Forgotten for the moment were all his failures, all his victories and all his loves, even life itself was buried and lost in the stillness.

He lay dead and floated in the water for nearly an hour. Finally, a small swell slapped at his face and he unwittingly inhaled a few drops of salt water. He snorted, dispelling the discomfort, and again became aware of his bodily sensations. Without watching his progress, he effortlessly backstroked toward the shore. When his hands arched and touched the dense sand, he stopped swimming and drifted onto the beach like a piece of flotsam. Then he dragged himself forward until he was only half out of the water, letting it swirl around his legs and buttocks. The warm Aegean surf rose out of the dim light and flooded up the beach, caressing his skin, and he dozed off.

The stars were beginning to blink out one by one with the pale light of the approaching dawn when an inner alarm sounded in Pitt's brain, and he suddenly became alert to a presence. Instantly he was awake, but he made no movement, other than peering through half open eyes. He barely could make out a shadowy form standing over him. Focusing and straining his eyes in the faint light, he tried to distinguish a detailed shape. Slowly, an outline materialized. It was a woman.

“Good morning,” he said and sat up.

“Oh my God,” the woman gasped. She threw a hand to her mouth as if to scream.

It was still too dark to see the wild look in her eyes, but Pitt knew it was there. “I'm sorry,” he said gently. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

The hand slowly dropped. She just stood there looking down at him. Finally she found her voice. “I…I thought you were dead.” She stammered the words softly.

“I can hardly blame you. I suppose if I stumbled on someone sleeping in the tide at this time of morning, I would think the same thing.”

“You gave me quite a frightful shock, you know, sitting up and talking like that.”

“Again, my sincere apologies.” It suddenly occurred to Pitt that the woman was speaking English. Her accent was decidedly British, but it had a trace of German. He rose to his feet. “Please allow me to introduce myself; my name is Dirk Pitt.”

“I'm Teri,” she said, “and I can't tell you how happy I am to see you alive and healthy, Mister Pitt.” She didn't offer her last name, and Pitt didn't press for it.

“Believe me, Teri, the pleasure is all mine.” He pointed to the sand. “Won't you join me and help raise the sun?”

She laughed. “Thank you, I'd like that. But then again, I can hardly see you. For all I know you might be a monster or something.” There was a note of whimsy in her tone. “Can I trust you?”

“To be perfectly honest, no. I think it only fair to warn you that I've assaulted over two hundred innocent virgins right here on this very spot.” Pitt's humor was overly forward, but he knew it was a good system for testing a female's personality.

“Oh blimey, I would dearly love to have been number two hundred and one, but I'm not an innocent virgin.” There was enough light now for Pitt to see the white of her teeth arched in a smile. “I certainly hope you won't hold that against me.”

“No, I'm very broad-minded about that sort of thing. But I must ask you to keep secret the fact that two hundred and one wasn't pure as the driven snow. If it ever leaked out, my reputation as a monster would be ruined.”

They both laughed and sat down together on Pitt's towel and talked while the hot sun reluctantly began its climb over the Aegean Sea. As the blazing orange ball threw its first golden rays over the shimmering horizon, Pitt gazed at the woman in the new light and studied her closely.